The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864

"'Tis a woman's friendship. 'Tis a poet's love for a poet. Each adores the other; but then what is more vulgar than to love one's friends when they are successful? Every hind can do that; while none but delicate and sensitive souls can shed torrents of tears over a friend's reverses."

A fortnight after this conversation took place, Madame Émile de Girardin died. There was a flood of panegyrics and of tears. Monsieur Paulin Limayrac was chief pall-bearer, and demonstrated in the columns of "La Presse" that Madame Émile de Girardin had herself alone more genius than Sappho, Corinne, Madame de Sévigné, Madame de Staël, and Madame George Sand, all put together.

THE LITTLE COUNTRY-GIRL

CHAPTER I

My father's old friend, Captain Joseph, came down by the morning train, to inquire concerning a will placed in my keeping by Farmer Hill, lately deceased.

This is his first visit since our marriage.

He declares himself perfectly satisfied with—a certain person, and insists on my revealing the reason, or reasons, of her choosing—a certain person, when she might, no doubt, have done better.

And he is equally charmed with our locality,—is glad to find such a paradise.

I like Captain Joseph. He doesn't croak. Some old men would look dismal, and say, perhaps,—"Happiness is not for earth," or, "In prosperity prepare for adversity." As if anybody could!

"A beautiful spot," says Captain Joseph. And truly it is a pleasant place here, close by the sea,—a place made on purpose to live in. It is a sort of valley, shut in on the east and on the west by high wooded hills, which stretch far out into the sea, and so make for us a charming little bay. There are only a few houses here: the town proper, where I have my law-office, is a mile off.

I found this nook quite accidentally, while sketching the islands off in the harbor, and the water, and the deep shading on the woods beyond. The people here took me to board. That was ten years ago.

Then the family was large. There was old Mr. Lane, his wife, their five grown-up boys, Emily, the sick one, and Miss Joey. The eldest son went out to China, and there died. The next three, at different times, started for California. Two died of the fever, and the third was supposed to have been murdered in crossing the Plains.

David remained. He was a tall, well-made youth, with plenty of health and good looks, willing to work on the farm, but devoted mainly to his little sloop-boat. People called him odd. He was both odd and even. He was odd in being somewhat different in his habits from other young men; but then he had an even way of his own, which he kept. With him, the sea and his little sloop-boat and the daily paper supplied the place of balls, concerts, parties, and young women.

"Why don't you dress up, and go gallivantin' about 'mong the gals?" his old mother used to say. But he would only laugh, and pshaw, and walk off to the shore. And I, watching his erect gait and firm tread, would wonder how it was that one good-looking young man should be so different from all other good-looking young men. Still, there was a sort of sheepishness about the eyes, and that was probably why he never turned them, when meeting the girls, but strode along, looking straight ahead, as if they had been so many fence-posts.

Fanny J– once laid a wager with me that she would make him bow. She contrived a plan to meet him as he returned from the Square. I hid behind the stone wall, and peeped through the chinks. Just as they met, she almost let the wind blow her bonnet off, hoping to catch his eye. But he looked so straight forward into the distance that I was alarmed, thinking there might be a loose horse coming, or a house afire. That was in the first of my staying there. We were afterwards great friends. He liked me, because I was good to the old folks, and to Emily,—and had a sort of respect for me, because I was the oldest, and because I could talk, and because of the great thick books in my room. I respected him, because I had seen the world and its shams, and knew him to be good all the way through, and because he couldn't talk, and also, perhaps, because he was so much bigger and handsomer than I. In fact, I should have felt quite downhearted about my own looks, if I hadn't learned from books—not the thick ones—that sallow-looking men, with dark eyes, are interesting.

David's mother approved of steady habits, but for all that she would rather have had him waste some of his time, and be like the rest of his kind.

"Poor David!" she would say, sometimes, "if anybody could only make him think he was somebody, he'd be somebody. But he 'a'n't got no confidence."

"Mother," I would answer, "don't worry about David. He's good, and goodness is as good as anything."

She liked to have me call her mother. I had been there so long that I almost filled the place of one of her lost ones. Besides, I had no mother of my own, and no real home.

Miss Joey, not being past thirty, had a plan in her head. Her head was small,—so was she,—but the plan was large enough and good enough.

This plan, however, was upset, and by her own means, even before the prospect of its being carried out was even probable. It was Miss Joey's own notion that one half the house should be let.

"We are so dwindled down," she said. "A small, quiet family would bring in a little something, and be company." This was at the close of a long and rather lonely winter.

So, one day, Mr. Lane came home, and said he had let the other half to a family from up-country,—man and wife and little girl.

"The very thing!" said Miss Joey.

Alas for human foresight!

The next day, at sundown, a loaded wagon drove up; then a carryall, from which stepped an elderly couple and a sweet pretty girl.

"What angel is that, alighting upon earth?" I exclaimed, looking over Miss Joey's head.

"Thought she was goin' to be a little girl," said she.

"Wal," replied Mr. Lane, "that's what he called her: suppose she seems little to him. But so much the better. The bigger she is, the more company she'll be."

Miss Joey went in to receive them, and I retired to my chamber. From the window I observed that the pretty girl was very handy about helping, and heard her mother call her Mary Ellen.

The next morning, just as I was leaving for the office, I heard a quick step across the entry. The door opened, and "the little girl," Mary Ellen, came in. Her hair was pushed straight behind her ears, and her sleeves were rolled up to the elbows.

"I came in," said she, rather bashfully, "to ask if Mr. Lane would help us set up a bedstead; father had to go, and mother's feeble."

"Mr. Lane's gone to get his horse shod," said Miss Joey.

Mary Ellen stood still, doubting whether to speak, but looking rather puzzled; for David was in plain sight, fixing his pickerel-traps in the back-room.

"Miss Joey," said I, smiling, and looking towards him, "there are two Mr. Lanes, you know."

"Oh, David,—yes,—David. Wal, so David could."

And so David did. I bit my lip, and went out.

In turning the corner of the house, I passed the open window, and glanced in, as was natural. 'Twas an old-fashioned bedstead, and there was David, red as a rose, screwing up the cord, while Mary Ellen, fair as a lily, was hammering away at the wooden peg, while the old lady stood by, giving directions.

It struck me so queerly that I laughed and talked to myself all the way to the office.

"Poor David!" I muttered, "how could he steady his hands, with such a pair of white arms near them? Good! good!" And then I would ha! ha! and strike my stick against the stones. "Turner," said I, addressing myself, "she's what you may call a sweet pretty girl."

I addressed the same remark to Miss Joey that night at tea.

"The girl," said she, "is an innocent little country-girl. She's got a good skin and a handsome set of teeth. But there's no need of her findin' out her good looks, unless you men-folks put her up to 't."

This I of course took to myself, David being out of the question.

An innocent little country-girl! And so she was. She brought to mind damask roses, and apple-blossoms, and red rosebuds, and modest violets, and stars and sunbeams, and all the freshness and sweetness of early morning in the country. A delicious little innocent country-girl! Poor David! who could have guessed that you were to be the means of letting in upon her benighted mind the secret of her own beauty?

Anybody who has travelled in the country has noticed two kinds of country-girls. The first are green-looking and brazen-faced, staring at you like great yellow buttercups, and are always ready to tell all they know. The others are shy. They look up at you modestly, with their blue or their brown eyes, and answer your questions in few words. Of this last kind was Mary Ellen. She looked up with brown eyes,—not dark brown, but light,—hazel, perhaps.

And those brown, or hazel, or grayish eyes looked up to some purpose,—as David, if he had had the gift of speech, might have testified. But a man may tell a good deal and never use his tongue at all. The eyes, for instance, or even the cheeks, can talk, and are full as likely not to tell lies.

It might have been two months, perhaps, after the other half was let, that I heard Mrs. Lane say one day,—

"Joey, there's an alteration in David."

"For better or wuss?" calmly inquired that maiden.

I did not hear the reply, but I had seen the alteration. In fact, I had noticed it from the beginning, and had come to the conclusion that the mischief was done the first day,—that his heart somehow got a twist in the screwing-up of the bed-cord,—that it received every one of the blows which those white arms were aiming at the insensible wood.